31.10.11

6.10.11

I found something to do during the even that wasn't the internet -- bake muffins!

I've had the mix for a long time, but the last place I was in I didn't have access to an oven, so it's just been sitting around. Decided to finally use some up, this packet has a "best by" date of February 2011, but they are still super delicious.

Had to use the internet to look up the cup conversion (a US cup is 236ish mL) and temperature in Celsius. All in all it took about 20 minutes to make these guys. All you have to do is add milk and there is just the right amount, I used a regular bowl I use for ramen and stuff, didn't even need a mixing bowl!

Now to share them with work people or to hoard them all to myself... Hmmm.

3.10.11

So about that hakama thing, these are the hakama I am borrowing and needed an iromuji to wear with:

I practiced with my striped hito-e, but since it's a group thing we all have to be in iromuji. I was thinking blue, but used blue iromuji are rather hard to come by. Plenty of shades of pink, but I only came across one I would really call blue, the other two that were close were more of a greenish mint color. I saw two fabulous light blue iromuji at Tenjin-san back in... August? I only let myself by one kimono that day, and passed on both the iromuji, though. Kind of kicking myself for it now.

After checking my main stores down town I was going to just buy the most blue of the ones I came across, but in that very store I looked around as I was killing time waiting for a staff lady to be free of her customers when I saw a BEAUTIFUL gray kimono that had the outrageous claim of being 90% off. And it was!

It even has an embroidered mon on the back!

It does have some stains on it, but not in any places that really stand out. Mostly on the back towards the bottom, but you'd have to really be inspecting the piece to see them. As you can see it was priced as ¥21000, I paid the low, low price of ¥2100! It's a kimono that I can wear for forever and is 100% silk, so a FABULOUS find, if I do say so myself. Perhaps my best purchase to date! My kitsuke teacher commented that I could wear it to shamisen performances, too, and now I want to find a SUPER flashy fukuro-obi to wear with it. I really do need to work on my obi collection... Typing that reminded me that I saw a lobster nagoya at another store before I bought this kimono.... :3

As you can see below they list defects/stains and the measurements of the kimono on the price tags at the place I bought it at (ichi man ben). They also clean their stuff before it goes in the store so their kimono don't have the same mothball smell that the pieces from flea markets often do. I really like this store, and I finally manned up and committed --- I made a point card! It costs ¥300 so I always put it off...

I expected to pay ¥5000-ish for the blue iromuji I had seen at the store before, so I used some of my left over cash to buy a couple date eri at a different place I just happened to bike by. The magenta one was ¥300 and the lime green one ¥500. I like magenta in general so although it's kind of matchy-matchy with the hakama I figured I'd buy it anyway just in case. I had trouble finding a blue eri to use (thought of adding blue that way since the kimono is gray), but that didn't go well. Lime green is actually one of my favorite accent colors (along with magenta and orange... I have a thing for tropical-esque colors), and I like the contrast of it with the hakama. I still need a hanhaba obi in a solid color, so that will be the final item that decides which eri I use. Unless of course my kitsuke teachers hate the green...

Or, I really need to make myself do more productive things than look at the internet all evening.

Had a fabulous day off today! Did some kimono shopping in preparation for an upcoming event for which I will be putting on hakama (with others) for an audience. I'll write a kimono gets post about my purchase, I'm pretty happy with my find. :3

I rode my bike around today, which is only something I get to do on days off or when I go to my baito (as long as it's not raining). Main job does not have bike parking available so we're not allowed to go by bike. :-/ Hopefully after the move to the new location it will be an option, but I haven't asked yet.

The weather was fabulous today, it was very much an early autumn kind of day, and I abso-fucking-lutely love autumn. Love it. Fall is longer here than other places I've lived, or at least by my internal thermometer it is. What I understand as "winter" doesn't really happen until January/ February, and if it doesn't snow I might just call days in those months just cold fall days.

The weather had me in an amazing mood and I kept commenting to myself about how much I love Kyoto as I rode around running errands. Had a kitsuke lesson today (new job has messed up my usual naraigoto schedule), too, which added a nice dose of human interaction to my day. Also had an amazingly yummy smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich at Excelsior Caffe. Highly recommended!

But then I got on the internet when I got home and now I can't get to sleep. @_@ (The sleep issue is probably less related to the content of what I did on the internet, more that my brain got wired.) Stupidly commented on a Facebook post of an old, old friend. (Note: I do not keep in touch with "old" friends, let alone "old, old" ones. I'm not sure what my deal is, but part of it is that I have nothing in common with the vast majority of people I knew before college and don't feel the need to reminisce...) She posted something about Japanese fashion and it was all amuck, I couldn't resist the urge to give her the down-low. Then I got friended by someone I didn't remember, looked at their profile picture, which clicked after about 30 seconds. Through this friending I realized that a girl who I think is at least 4 years younger than me (we used to be on the same sports team when I was a kid) is hitched already, has been for a year. WHAT THE WHAT? Country kids get married too damn early. For realz. Now I also have to decide what to do about that friending. o_o

I also recently came across some blogs of white chicks engaged to/ recently married to guys in Japan. I don't need another bout of random "gee, marriage sure is neato.... *sigh*" right now. Given that I cannot control these people's lives, I guess that means I should just stop spending so much time on the damn internet.

I need a TV. Or need to get back to some crochet projects.

Also need a costume for the Halloween live..... If only I could sew.

Kimono post coming up soon. Also thinking of adding more stories, you know, add some depth here or something...

20.9.11

About 2 weeks after getting my furniture delivered I finally have all of the pieces constructed and placed in my room as I like! I had a mishap with a crappy ¥100 screw driver set (yeah, getting the set was definitely stupid, but the ¥100 shop is really not a good place to buy tools, anyway) and wasn't able to get to a store that sold decent tools for a few days, putting me behind schedule. For the time being the major storage problems have been solved (lack of hanging space, no dresser, food storage), I'll be working on the remaining issues after I start getting paid regularly.

I also really need a TV... Although I have the internet, it's so much easier to just listen to the news on TV and hear what's going on in rather than research it online. Like with the typhoon recently, I had no idea that Wakayama was hit so hard. There's another typhoon in town this week, I'll try to keep an eye on the internet news so I can be relatively informed. It sure is easier to see the weather dude standing out in the pouring rain talking about the gail force winds, though.

17.9.11

I got busy again... sorry. New job has started and although I wouldn't say it's kept me busy, it has cut down on the amount of time I have to do post-worthy things.

Every now and then I like to check up on some of the singers/ bands I like and see what they are up to. I just so happened to do this random check on Acid Black Cherry just in time to see the ad for the Halloween Party Live he's(/they are) going to be in with Vamps as well as some other people. I actually like Yasu a lot in Janne Da Arc and wish he would go back to them for a while, and after getting Q.E.D. was not surprised to find that I didn't like many of the songs... But screw it. I've been feeling the need to rock out for a while now (didn't help that the beau got to see X Japan at Summer Sonic when he doesn't even like them... Unworthy!), so I put in for a ticket. And I got one! In the stands, I think it was. I wanted a seat, because well, I'm not a huge fan of either ABC or Vamps (though I do like them!) so I felt I might need the option to sit down.

I have just confirmed that we are in fact supposed to go in costume. What to wear??? I also will have to change once I get there because I don't want to spoil all the effort I've put into making gaijin seem relatively respectable by spending the 1.5 hour train ride in some kind of freaky costume. XD I could have my mom ship me my Kiss army boots (giant 6inch tall platform knee-high boots with big buckles) but they aren't exactly easily portable... lol. My white Dr. Martens are more logical, but those Kiss army boots don't get much of a chance to see the light of day.... ::mischievous grin::

But once I got the things here what in the hell would I do with them? Hide them in my closet so no one knows that I experimented with giant Jrock-tastic goth boots at one point in my life, I guess.... I mean, if someone found those things I would feel like I imagine people feel when their mom finds their porn stash. 'Cept those boots may be harder to explain than some issues of Hustler.

24.8.11

So much stuff to do. And moving to a place with nothing is very costly. So many things I have to buy.

I tried out the Sayonara Sale angle. I'd say... relatively successful. I planned a pick up for a oven microwave and a standing fan for last night. Accidently on the same night as a friend's welcome back/ birthday party, but I convinced myself it would only take me an hour max for the whole ordeal, so I wasn't too worried about it. I headed out and arrived at the apartment complex of the lady I was getting the items from early with bungee cords and bags with plans of strapping everything on to my bicycle and riding off into the sunset. Then I got to her room. "I don't know how you came, but the microwave is a little big..." the nice lady tells me. HUGE. HUGE IS MORE LIKE IT, KTHANKS. But it was only ¥2000, and I'm weak to cheapness so for some ungodly reason my response was, "well I need a microwave so I'll just take it and get a taxi home..."

I am a fool. By the time I took a Taxi, which I JUST had enough money to pay for, then took a bus back to get the bike (the remainder of my money used here), and rode back, I had missed an entire 2.5 hours of the party. Also, after thinking back on my impulsive "I'll just take it" response over the last few 24 hours, I really think it was a bad idea... It's just so big it will take up my entire kitchen (ie the space between my sink and the washing machine that I intended to figure a way out to have a microwave and still have space for cooking prep like cutting things). I'm thinking that I'll take it to a recycle shop and see if I can get them to take it off my hands and offer me about ¥2000 off of a different microwave. If that fails, maybe I'll just bake cakes for money on the side. @_@

Also, for the last few evenings I've been obsessed by the search for a futon set. How much?? No cover?? Should I save money, but my kill back? I was told that I shouldn't buy a set that's less than ¥10000 (set? just one part of the set? I don't even know). I feel like buying a Japanese futon is something I need someone to hold my hand for...

I was planning on getting it online and having it shipped to me in time for the move-stuff-by-car day, but there's barely enough time now. I stopped by Izumiya on the way home today, and screw it. They are having a sale on some things and they deliver for cheap (¥550 no matter how much stuff). I'll just go buy something tomorrow. It feels a lot better to actually be able to poke stuff before I buy it. I also had the breakthrough that I don't need to buy a kake-buton (the one you put on top of yourself) right now. I sleep with a sheet right now, and my mom sent me my duvet cover that I can use empty to cover up with until at least October. I might not get lucky with a sale when I do need a kake-buton, but I think it will be easier on my wallet in the short term (still missing some basic eating utensils and want to get storage stuff at IKEA...). I should be able to get by with a foldy pad, the bottom futon (shiki-buton), cover for futon, and some pillows for at least another month and a half.

...I just compared sizes and a twin sized duvet cover is 30cm larger in both directions than a single sized kake-buton. Oh well. XD

In other news, I officially look French to Japanese people. Whenever someone tries to guess what country I'm from I get France a large majority of the time, have gotten British and American only once each I believe. Most people just ask me where I'm from or end it with "oh you're a foreigner!" but the ones that guess seem to think "French." Go figure.

Also, I'm not a fan of Big Bang, but I started listening to some of the songs that GD and TOP did together and now can't stop. o_0

14.8.11

And I'm okay with admitting that.

Recently, I have developed an affection for Ikuta Toma. Why...? I have no idea, but he has been the driving force behind my choice of Tsutaya rentals lately. I watched Hanamizuki, Seaside Motel, Ningen Shikaku, and am currently watching Honey and Clover. I just drama-wiki-ed him, apparently he's been in 4 movies and I've seen 3 out of 4 in the last two months. XD The fourth might not actually be out yet...

Anyway, I guess his drama repertoire is more developed, so I'll have to keep going to the drama section to continue my Ikuta Toma-based rentals. One great thing about Hanamizuki and Honey and Clover? They both feature Osamu Mukai, too! 2 for the price of one! (If I had a ikemen actor ranking in which Kimutaku was not allowed to be ranked, it would currently feature Ikuta Toma as #1 and Mukai Osamu as #2. Currently. These things change often.)

Honey and Clover is enjoyable, but Ikuta Toma's character is kind of whiny for most of the series... I have two discs left and he is obviously growing up, though, so I expect good things in the end.

This post is really just an excuse to post this picture of him from his photo shoot in an ANAN sex issue.

I've had it open in a tab for a few days, and keep being surprised when I accidentally click onto it. Happily surprised, that is.

For some ungodly reason, I was looking up ANAN sex issues when my boyfriend was over (... yeah, I don't know why either, I was looking at the pictures WITH him, does that help? I think it started when I showed him the raunchy Kimutaku pics from forever ago because he didn't believe they existed...) and was shocked to see that Osamu Mukai did a nudie shoot (for a sex issue)! But then I realized that it was before he really hit it big with Gegege no Nyobo, and he pretty much had to use his body to sell himself. :( I say this with some evidence, he was on the cover of ANAN around February of this year and had a super chaste photo shoot (one sort-of suggestive shot with a strawberry, but very little skin). I expect a little more risque stuff from ANAN so I was a bit disappointed (god, talking about this makes me sound like a shallow horndog....) but now I realize that it means that he's gotten to a place in his career where he doesn't need to take of his clothes to sell magazines. Good for him. I still wish he had been forced to dye his hair blue to play George in Paradise Kiss, but respect nonetheless.

In other news, I watched a scene of the new Rurouni Kenshin movie being filmed! I saw Satoh Takeru in person, with my own eyeballs! And was even within mere meters of him (only about 1 meter that one time!!!!). I didn't actually speak to him or anything, because I'm not that awesome, but it was still pretty cool. (Yes, I did just slip in this at the end of a completely unrelated post. XD)

In honor of this encounter, I think I will watch Mei-chan no Shitsuji next. (Even though Satoh-san has that hair-too-big-for-his-head thing going on in that drama...) It features not only Satoh Takeru, but also Osamu Mukai AND Mizushima Hiro before he became a recluse and then showed up in mobage commercials with blond super short hair. You know, the good old days.

Mostly unrelated: have you seen Gackt's most recent look? I give up. I am done with that man. DONE, YOU HEAR ME?

13.8.11

Look what they sell at Family Mart!

For the low, low price of ¥350. I figured I'd just have to surf the website, but was happy to see IKEA catalogs for sale at my local convenience store. (They might have them at other places, Family Mart is just the place I usually go.)

As you might imagine from my talk of moving, I was excited to mark all the potential items for my apartment-to-be. I went a little crazy.

Time to trim it down. I think I came up with a decorating theme, though. Modern with retro and natural touches. I'm thinking mostly white furniture with color/texture accents. The one example I've thought of is getting a white shelving unit with square openings and placing woven baskets (1, 2, 3, 4) on the shelves to keep the clutter contained. Also, they have a fabulous shag rug that looks like grass. WANT. Since there are plenty of great places to get accent pieces at stores in Kyoto I'll try to just stick to the bigger items that might cost me more at smaller stores... I hope you like interior decorating, I'm not sure how many posts there will be about this stuff. :x

11.8.11

Another great find with the boyfriend. I can't seem to remember the reason why, but we both had a lot of meat the night before (what did we eat?? and why so much meat??) and we were looking for a place to get lunch that could offer us lots of vegetables. With some Googling we found Kokokara (ここから) and after getting a little lost looking for it, eventually found our way there for lunch on a Sunday. I went for the day's lunch special for ¥850 and was shocked by how much food came out. See their lunch page for a prettier picture of one incarnation of the lunch set.

The set came with a hunk of rice (it had some healthy bits added into it) which is off screen on the left, a collection of 3 mini sides, a giant salad, veggie soup, and 2 potato croquettes that came with their own mini salad. It was a whole lot of veggies for ¥850! Unless I haven't eaten for a day beforehand, I think the next time I got for the lunch special I'll try asking them to skip the rice. I was too full to finish it, and we all know how mottainai uneaten food is. The veggies are all supposedly locally grown, and according to the website organic. Fancy that.

As you can see in the picture below, I tied the ends of the scarf in a floofy thing and put a flower clip in the middle. I decided on the scarf on relatively short notice, so I didn't have time to come up with an obi tie that would be more suitable to feature my floof, but I think it turned out okay with just a bow shape.

My ohashori is too long... I'm planning on wearing a different yukata to fireworks on Monday, I'll try to keep shortening my ohashori in mind as I'm getting dressed.

6.8.11

Okay, so down, actually. And more to the west than east-side... But I don't know any songs with those directions involved with moving. Though, a quick Youtube search does reveal classics like "Move on Down the Road."

I have successfully landed a job! One in town that will let me use my Japanese while still being an English teacher. It's teaching small kids, which I'm sure will tire me out but sounds like fun. Learning to deal well with children is good life skill, I think, so of the English teaching options this was the one I wanted to pursue. And with the added benefit of still needing to use Japanese, it's a pretty win-win job.

Therefore, I am apartment hunting. I was pretty scared to start the process of looking for a room because of all the stuff you hear about gaijin having trouble finding places. I had hopes that Kyoto with all its many gaijin here for educational purposes (and other ones, too) would be easier than other places, but I had nothing to go on in either direction. My school/company does not offer assistance, but my boss recommended a website that you can search for places that don't require a guarantor (when I explained the process to my mom she said that it would be like having a co-signer, since I have never rented in the US I was not aware of this, but it sounds about the same). I was nervous about asking any of my acquaintances to be my guarantor, so it was my first choice to look for a place that didn't require one. Home's (the site linked above) appears to search listings with several real estate agencies, so it's really handy for searching lots of properties with one site. I found a few rooms I liked and sent an inquiry that was directed to the managing agencies. A guy at 賃貸住宅サービス ("rental housing service"? I think they have a stupid name.... at least they have a cute monkey mascot to make up for it) emailed me back pronto in the middle of the night, so I set up an appointment with him. The early bird gets the apartment-seeking-gaijin, don't cha know.

I had a couple rooms I liked, and after I explained to him by email what I was looking for, he looked up some more rooms for me. When I submitted the inquiry form at Home's I put in the "memo" area that I can handle Japanese, so contact me using Japanese. That seemed to have worked out well. There was some confusion in the email exchange as to what my last name was, I always write it in Japanese order because I think it makes sense to assimilate to the writing pattern they have here already, but it doesn't really seem to work that well. Being a gaijin with a first and last name that are relatively uncommon, Japanese people generally can't tell which name is the family name and never seem to assume that I would write it in Japanese order for them, anyway. When he emailed me back calling me Melon-sama, I made sure to sign my reply with only my last name, fortunately he picked up on the hint. Maybe from now on I'll just write in parentheses which is my last name to try to simplify things. I guess the other gaijin aren't assimilating to last-name-first writing order? I don't get it.

Back to the room search.

I found a room that was big and in a FABULOUS location, with exactly my price point. It was super affordable all things considered. When I asked my realtor boy about it (he's one year younger than me... lol) he confessed that the room was going for half the normal rent because someone died there. Greeaaat. Suicide, I would imagine. Someone had lived there for a year without incident since the other person died, but even without being someone who puts much stock in ghosts, it kind of creeps me out. But no worries!! Even though they have a haunted room that they have to rent out for 1/2 price, they still didn't want a gaijin with no guarantor living there. Make what you will of that.

I saw one apartment the first day, and came back the next evening to look at some other places. I was surprised to find out that it doesn't matter what agency is in charge of the property, my agent was able to show me rooms that weren't actually under his company. I found one on Home's that was under the care of another company, and he said to send the info along so he could look into it for me (this is the room it looks like I'll end up with). I found one I really like that has a great quirk factor (I really like quirk, I realized. the next time I look for a room I'll explain that to my realtor off the bat) and lots of space (I'm talking Kyoto/Japan "lots of space," mind you). It's first floor, which is the cheapest and generally considered suckiest of the floor options, but an okay amount of light seemed to get in, and the spaciousness of it really got me.

The last I had heard from my realtor was that they (the landlord et. al?) finished up looking at my documents and they just needed to give my guarantor a call to make sure he exists. I got the okay from the prof and forwarded the info to my realtor and hadn't heard anything since. Okay, so just a day and a half without contact, but still I was nervous that some horrible thing had come to light (like my shamisen playing ways perhaps???) that had made me lose the room. I figured that even my emails-at-all-times-of-night realtor probably has days off, so I didn't bother him yesterday. Sent him an email this morning and sounds like everything is A-okay! The contract is ready for me to go pick up (... and try to understand before signing...?). I'll try to go today to get it.

The room comes with NOTHING, so I have a lot of shopping to do. I discovered that my favorite chain of recycle shops (second hand shops) offer a delivery service for big ticket items for a flat fee no matter how many items you buy. Even if I find things at different stores it still counts for the flat fee deal. I'm going to visiting the Higashi-yama area tomorrow if the weather cooperates, so I'll check at the international community center for ads for sayonara sales, too. If I can't find any crazy cheap sales then I think I'll go with the recycle shops. There are probably somethings I should actually buy new, though.... I need to look up how much of a difference in electricity and water usage there is for appliances like fridges and washing machines made in different years. If only they had "energy star" appliances here.

For the more fun decorating items I'm hoping to make a trip to Ikea... :D

There will probably be more updates about this stuff that you care to see, but I'll try to keep some non-apartment posts coming, too.

4.8.11

My significant other and I asked our favorite sales guy (he works at a clothing store on Teramachi) for his suggestions on places to eat. He immediately suggested Sanjo Pakuchi. I have since been there twice. The pictures in this post are of a lunch set they were offering when I first went, when I went back the second time it was nighttime and my friend and I just ordered a variety of things off the menu (too much, it was enough for 3 people). Sorry, failed to take pictures that time.

I've never really had Thai food, but the owner appears to be Thai, so I think I can trust it's relatively legit. They also have at least one waiter from Thailand, I embarrassed myself by saying something stupid to him after not catching on fast enough that the reason his Japanese was weird was because he wasn't Japanese.... I really need to stop avoiding eye contact.

I can't remember the name of the set, but it had glass noodles and yumminess. The rice was imported from Thai and the egg on top cost extra, but it was worth it. The price was pretty cheap, too, if I remember correctly.

I had a lime soda with it, it was mixed there in the restaurant. It was a little too sour for me (I did add sugar...), the next time I went I had a soda-ified coconut flavored alcoholic beverage. I liked it better than the lime soda, I like to think it was the flavor and not just the addition of booze.

Only complaint is that the restaurant does not seem to have AC, or at least they put it on very low if they do... It was pretty hot both times I was there, food is good but it's a little uncomfortable if you go on a hot day. I wonder if they have heat in the winter...

3.7.11

So, as you might be able to tell from my past kimono posts, I love a bargain. The beginning of July has brought with it the beginning of summer sales, and I offered some of my hard earned moneys to the Japanese economy in honor of discounts and my desire for a couple more summer pieces.

I only intended on buying two types of things: pants and button-up short sleeved shirts. And maybe a pair of khaki shorts. Maybe. I started with Uniqlo, since it's a great place for pants in Japan, and if necessary they will adjust the length. That went well. Pants get. But, then we had to ride the escalator down past the many floors of Loft, and a sale bin caught my eye. It was there I spotted an absolutely adorable skinny orange wallet. I didn't really need a wallet, and the sale price wasn't that good in first glance. Then I found out that my boyfriend is a bad influence. He convinced me to buy it (after I made a deal that he would pay at lunch to help my unexpected wallet purchase be less painful). I don't regret it, but I didn't really need a wallet. Next I hit up Nice Claup, which I might as well call my favorite readily accessible clothing store (if they'd put a Forever21 in Osaka then it would fall to number 2), and found a couple of shirts. Lowry's Farm is next to Nice Claup, so that was my next stop, at which point the boy suddenly turns into a voice of reason telling me that we're "just going to look." Yeah, when I'm looking at things I actually intended to shop for suddenly he's stingy (with my money). Fortunately nothing caught my eye so I didn't have to comment on his sudden frugality.

I'll be posting the items I bought on my Poupee Girl account, so I'll save you the run/photo down here. I went to Spinns and got some stuff for a friend of mine who is a fan of Haruhi Suzumiya. We also wandered into a division of Sou Sou I had never been in and made an amazing wafuku discovery that I'll be posting about eventually! It was an eventful day.

So, the job hunt continues. At this point I've had interviews with 4 places. One job offer I passed on, I'm in kind of a limbo state with one, and am waiting on word from the other two. The limbo state involves me needing to prove my worth and hope they decide I deserve a job sooner rather than later. We'll see how it goes. I take my first swing at it this week.

Also, I googled "learn french" and found this BBC site. They have a 12 week course for beginners, and I could even get a certificate from the BBC! I don't know what that means, but it sounds fancy. I've been thinking I wanted to give French a try if only because I butch the pronunciation of French words in English on a regular basis. This course appears to be free. Let's do this.

22.6.11

Now that it's a month and a day since my birthday I guess I'll finally post about what I had to eat that day... lol

I went with my boyfriend to Osaka, we had a reservation for dinner and planned on just finding a place to have tea-time cake. We ended up taking a bit too long and didn't get to looking for cake until about 4pm. I hadn't had lunch so I was really hungry, and although I had thought of having a more America-esque cake choice for my birthday cake, I was too hungry to keep going so we ended up eating at Chao Lua, a Vietnamese restaurant.

They had very festive decor!

I went with a banana/sweet potato crumble-topped cake. While not what I would usually imagine as birthday cake, it was DELICIOUS. It came with ice cream and some whipped cream on the side.

They also serve pho and have a little dessert bar thing that looked really good, I hope to go back to Chao Lua for a regular meal some time soon!

Our dinner reservation was at El Pancho, a well-established Mexican restaurant at Shinsaibashi. I made a mistake with my margarita order, I ordered "regular" when I didn't see "lime" on the menu, but whatever flavor "regular" was, it wasn't very good. The food was good.... Not great, but maybe I just didn't order the right stuff. My biggest complaint? It was insanely dark inside. INSANELY. We ordered some platter-like things (it my companion's first time having Mexican food), and I couldn't identify some of what we were eating until I tried it, I simply could not SEE what I was eating.

This gives a pretty good idea of the darkness that is El Pancho.

And a long exposure to show the interior better. There are names written all over the walls, I assume it was encouraged because there is graffiti ALL OVER.

If I were to go back to El Pancho, I think I would go during happy hour/ when there is still daylight... I received a recommendation for El Zocalo, a burrito joint also in Shinsaibashi. If I feel the need to give Japan Mexican another try, I'll be heading there next.

21.6.11

I saw this road as I was walking back from my shamisen lesson, and for some reason it captured my attention. It is a pretty long path, and it gets skinnier along the way. It was one of those warm and fuzzy Kyoto moments, I couldn't resist taking a picture.

20.6.11

Are working hard to bring up that birth rate!! I maintain that I see a lot of pregnant women in Kyoto, and while I know that it doesn't really mean anything in the big picture I like to think it's proof that Kyoto women are working hard for the nation of Japan. I now have met 3 pregnant women in Japan, two through work-related things and one at kitsuke class. Of the three, one was married well in advanced of the pregnancy, while the other two got married recently and have a few more months to go before their respective babies are born. It really is none of my business, and I don't look down on any one for going the deki-kon (でき婚) route, it just surprised me that it really does seem to be becoming relatively commonplace.

I heard yesterday* that actress Rosa Kato recently married soccer player Daisuke Matsui with a "bun in the oven" after an apparently rather short period of dating. They both updated their official sites with the news a couple days ago. Daisuke Matsui is from Yamashina, I hear, so I suppose I should say that the men of Kyoto(-fu) are working hard on the baby problem as well.

This news reminded me that Kaela Kimura married Eita under similar circumstances a while back, and with a quick google search it appears she now has a baby boy.

I saw on some show a model/ generally famous person explaining that deki-kon wasn't a bad thing, that getting pregnant gave her/women a reason to decide "yes, I'll commit to this person." She sounded like she wasn't able to make up her mind about the baby-daddy-to-be until there was a fetus in the picture. Getting married seems like it's still a popular goal in Japan, so I'm not sure why women would feel the need to have an excuse to get married... but she seemed to think it made sense.

19.6.11

I love Book Off. It still saddens me that they aren't on the T-card system any more (not to mention that I don't really understand how their new point system works), but I love them anyway. I was going to post the cool things I found at Book Off earlier, but it slipped my mind...

First, what I went there to get: Bimoji Training for DS.

They had several versions available, some missing the touch pen, others missing cases, or instruction booklets. The prices varied accordingly. The one I got was supposed to be missing something (I thought it was the case), but I seem to have all my pieces. I've had this now about 2 (3?) weeks, and perhaps not surprisingly, I haven't actually kept up using it everyday, but if I will myself to do it, I think it could be a helpful thing to have. As well as writing things it tells you to write, you can also set your own commonly use words/names to practice writing, which I thought was pretty cool. Also! I didn't give me any trouble for writing my name in katakana/ for having a strangely long name. Props to the developers on that one.

I bought my game on the upper floor, but I like to check downstairs for kimono books, so I went to look and lo and behold! Two issues of Kimono Hime! They were both ¥600, and I had gotten a coupon upstairs when I bought my game, so I saved a little there, too. These are issues 1 and 4. I have the most recent one, 10, so this brings my collection to a count of 3. I'll be keeping my eye out for the others!

16.6.11

O~i Ocha tea is offering 6 varieties of seeds with their genmai tea! I don't really like their regular tea, so I'm happy it's on the genmai version. I decided to go with basil seeds, since I had been considering growing basil but hadn't gotten around to it yet. It says to start the seeds in the bottle cap, inside the bag there is a little flat dirt disk that fits perfectly into the cap and a little baggy of seeds. It comes with a little paper with instructions and everything. I'll let you know how it turns out when I finish drinking the tea and the seeds have had some time to grow. :)

And that thing I said I'd post about last weekend I'll do this weekend... it's not that big though, don't get super excited or anything...

10.6.11

This arrangement was in a bathroom on campus. I take this as official proof that Japanese people think of dandelions as legitimate flowers. I had heard this before, but here was the proof I was lacking.

2.6.11

Passed! Probably. I had my kimono test on Wednesday. We had to get dressed from naga-juban and tie a nijuu-daiko with a fukuro obi in 15 minutes or less and then take a paper test. Supposedly the getting dressed part is more important, and all three of us passed that part with flying colors. Even the woman who is pregnant (looks to be ready to pop, but apparently still has 3 months or so to go) managed to make her obi look great, she does have to tie it really high on her chest so it doesn't squish her belly, though. On the paper test I had some issues remembering some things at first, and parts of it were a little "huh? what's that?" with stuff I didn't know the names of (like date-jime versus shin-date-jime, I get it now, but we never used those terms in class so I was a bit confused).

Now I just need to set aside a little over 5万円 (with the current exchange rate $600) for a wooden sign with my name on it... lol. Fortunately they are letting us pay by the ceremony (October), so I don't have to dish it all out right away.

Now that we're in June yukata season is nearly upon us! Granted, it's not very summery here yet, it hasn't even been that warm the past week. Of course there's the rainy season keeping things wet, but I think the last time I was here for the rainy season it was a lot hotter. I'm sure I'm just speaking too soon. I had my mom ship me my other yukata, so I now have 3 at my disposal! I do have three obi options (awesome chidori hanhaba, really thin red/green hanhaba, and one light pink heko obi [I just spent 10 minutes try to look up the name because I forgot it...]) but I want to expand my obi selection, so I'm hoping to buy two new-to-me hanhaba obi. One in a prettier red than the obi I have, and maybe a cream or light blue? I want to hit up Tenjin-san this month but I'm not sure if I'll be able to since it's the Boy's birthday weekend... Though he does need a yukata...

Speaking of kimono stuff, I found something neato the other day! I'll post about it this weekend. :)

30.5.11

The other day I had a bout of "OMG maybe I CAN'T handle this (i.e. living in Japan) forevers" brought on by an old taxi driver who told me that if I just worked on my intonation, golly gee, my Japanese would just be perfect! Intonation, yeah, it's real hard isn't it? Oh, well, ganbatte on that! 8D

This was at my new-ish part-time job. Suffice it to say it's a service industry job in which no Japanese person (or non-Japanese person, really) expects a gaijin to be working, none. And I'm aware of this, and to an extent I understand, but the unsolicited advice/ Japanese appraisals/ diarrhea of the mouth I have to deal with is a little more than I expected. When I'm in a good mood and not too worn out (usually the first 2 days are good, by the 3rd day in a row I'm a little wiped out) I just smile pretty, answer whatever questions mostly in Japanese and occasionally in English and just think it's strange, but cute. Most of the time nothing is offensive, it's just a little strange how excited/surprised people are, and to an extent I'm happy to be a gaijin "boldly going" as one might say, so I understand the reactions for what they are.

I say only a very few select phrases to any single customer/visitor. If they don't ask me any extraneous questions, there's only 3 things I say. And when they ask the 4th is, "I'm an American." So I have no idea what Taxi Man felt was my intonation issue, but it actually brought me to tears. No, not right there, but after I obsessed about it for a few minutes. It's nothing like some super vague criticism of my Japanese to make me lose all perspective and have angsty thoughts of never wanting to speak again. Intonation? Sure, I'm sure my intonation is not NHK perfect, and in fact there must be times when it's not the intonation of a native speaker, but dammit Taxi Man, this isn't Chinese we're speaking here! And what the hell did I even say that set off your intonation radar?

Also working at this job, I notice how people don't really pay attention to what's going on. I can do a whole greeting sentence and a small interaction with someone before they finally look up and are surprised that I'm not Japanese. Sure, part of the reason they are surprised is because they have no reason to think a foreigner would be there, I guess that's why my debilitating intonation problem hasn't set off more alarms?

And don't assume that I just get my panties in a twist every time someone corrects my Japanese. When I'm wrong, I'm glad to have someone correct me so I can remember not to do it again. I'm a little embarrassed of course, but it's good to be corrected sometimes.

So, Taxi Man crushed my spirit, but fortunately my boyfriend was really great at giving me a pep talk. It included a little bit of ego boosting as well as some amusing observations about how even if older people (like Taxi Man) are set in their ways of understanding the world as "Japanese People and Everyone Else," they'll die off soon enough. I don't in anyway wish death on Taxi Man (he thought he was helping me out, he was just awkward with his unsolicited critique), and really Japanese people generally live a long time so "soon enough" is probably a minimum of 20 more years, but I was amused anyway.

And later that same night at a party at the dorm a Japanese girl told me that I sounded just like someone from Osaka, which also helped me regain faith in my Japanese.

27.5.11

We had to change trains at 千里中央 (Senri-chūō) during my birthday Osaka trip, and as we searched around for the subway station (we were transferring from the monorail) we came across this large group of people.

Funnily enough we had just seen a commercial for this sub-group of AKB48, called Diva, on TV the night before. I don't know much about AKB48 nor am I a fan at all, but it was still interesting to see. They seemed to be passing things out while giving handshakes. Click for a larger version.

There is some kind of Takarazuka version of Phantom of the Opera coming out in June! Tempted to take someone I know to see it, but since it seems to be different from the musical version I know and enjoy, I'm not sure I want this to be his introduction to the story...

22.5.11

And steep! Steep! Steep!

Thus ends the photographic evidence that my tea making experience is cooler than yours. Get your own TeaSub at a Hankyu Hands near you! (Or some other place that sells them...) Mine was a gift, also making it cooler than having to buy it for yourself, but it's okay I won't tell any one if you want to say yours was a gift, too. No one has to know.